How did a career banker of 15 years residing in land-locked Pennsylvania, leave the financial industry to make a living working with whales and dolphins? I was an avid whale watcher for several years before developing a business plan for The Whale Video Company.

My background includes a BS in Accounting and a Masters in Business Administration. I left Mellon Bank in 1988 planning to develop and manage my own company.

One of the best kept secrets on the east coast is the delight of watching whales in the waters off the New England states. Perhaps the best area in the world to see whales is off the coast of Massachusetts in the National Marine Sanctuary called Stellwagen Bank. Just seven miles from the port of Provincetown, Ma ( the original landing place of the pilgrims, not Plymouth, MA as recorded in the history books), is a shallow area, some places just 50 feet deep, where whales search for and find food. Ninety-nine percent of the trips see whales!

It took several months to put together a business plan. I approached the owner of the Dolphin Fleet with a proposal. I wanted to provide a service on his boats that would allow passengers to order a video tape of their actual trip. We would also include families and friends on the tape. It was to be a very special personalized video of their trip. A message about the Dolphin Fleet would be on every video tape.

Al Avellar, the founder of east coast whale watching and the owner of the Dolphin Fleet, agreed that my idea may indeed be a valuable service for his passengers. I also knew that with several months of filming I could put together an extraordinary tape with the best sightings of the season.

The Dolphin Fleet has a very interesting operation. Three boats capable of safely carrying 150 passengers each, operate out of Provincetown Harbor. The season for watching whales begins the middle of April and continues until the last Sunday in October. The four hour ride costs around $20 with small children riding free.

Throughout the whale watch season, the Dolphin Fleet offers three to nine trips daily and every tour is an actual research trip. There is a unique blend of business helping science on board the Dolphin Fleet. Research is conducted by the Center for Coastal Studies, and the scientists act as naturalists on every trip, and have done this since 1975! The Dolphin Fleet provides the platform for their research.

Researchers can identify individual whales within most species, especially the humpback whales. Since these 40-50 ton animals are curious by nature, they often get very close to the whale watch boats. The tail of an adult humpback is 12-13 feet wide and 4 feet high! This is like seeing a billboard with a finger print on it. The tail patterns range from all white to all black and distinguishing marks make each one unique.

More than 1400 individual humpbacks have been identified in the Gulf of Maine. Salt was the first humpback named in this population. She has scarring on her dorsal fin that looks like granules of salt. Churchill has a "V" shaped notch on his tail. Cats Paw has a mark on her tail that looks like a cats paw print, and Arrow has a scar on the left side of her dorsal fin that looks like the shaft and head of an arrow.

As luck would have it, our first year turned out to be the best year for watching whales in a decade! The whales were just fantastic. Just when you were so bold to think you knew a little about whales and their behaviors, the whales would do something never before seen or documented. On some individual trips we taped more than 60 humpback whales. We taped almost all of the one thousand trips conducted by the Dolphin Fleet that year.

The Whale Video Company has produced the world’s most exciting whale-related programs.

Salt & Friends: Humpback Whales With Names (60 mins) is the most unique program about whales ever produced. This DVD introduces the viewer to fifteen different humpback whales. The grand dame of all whales has to be Salt, the first humpback whale given a name. You’ll see and hear why she and others were given their names. You’ll be entertained and educated by their different personalities, their differences in feeding styles and their curiosities about people, even bringing their calves up to and under the boats! Family trees of each are included.

AWESOME Whales For Kids was produced to put you on the boat, at least it will seem like you are there enjoying the whales and the boat ride. 

AWESOME Whales For Kids is 67 minutes in length, all of it whales and dolphins.  It is dedicated to showing the awesome nature of whales.

The Best of Provincetown Whale Watching and Beyond Belief: The Humpback Whale have been shipped to every major country. In 1993, we produced a 46 tape series on individual humpback whales for the International Wildlife Coalition’s Whale Adoption Program. Members adopting humpbacks can now see their whales in natural behaviors free to come and go as they please. We also produce a new compilation tape annually, showing the highlights of each whale watch season. Wonderful Whales Volume 11 was released in 2002.

What do I like best about my job? Even after fifteen years there is nothing better than visiting the whales in their environment. You never know what you’ll see or learn. The next best thing about owning this company is visiting schools and making multimedia presentations about whales. The students get involved and there is never enough time to answer all their questions.

This spring, the Dolphin Fleet begins its thirty-first year, while The Whale Video Company begins its 17th season. Sometime in October, we will again venture out to the ocean to record trip number 17,000 on video tape!

For information about The Whale Video Company call 717 763-9507 or visit us at www.whalevideo.com